Simulating the Whole Universe

Roland Piquepaille writes "An international group of cosmologists, the Virgo Consortium, has realized the first simulation of the entire universe, starting 380,000 years after the Big Bang and going up to now. In 'Computing the Cosmos,' IEEE Spectrum writes that the scientists used a 4.2 teraflops system at the Max Planck Society's Computing Center in Garching, Germany, to do the computations. The whole universe was simulated by ten billion particles, each having a mass a billion times that of our sun. As it was necessary to compute the gravitational interactions between each of the ten billion mass points and all the others, a task that needed 60,000 years, the computer scientists devised a couple of tricks to reduce the amount of computations. And in June 2004, the first simulation of our universe was completed. The resulting data, which represents about 20 terabytes, will be available to everyone in the months to come, at least to people with a high-bandwidth connection. Read more here about the computing aspects of the simulation, but if you're interested by cosmology, the long original article is a must-read."

Comments

Obligatory question

[BinBoy]

Does the simulation include simulated scientists simulating the universe?

Re:Obligatory question

[maxwell demon]

Does the simulation include simulated scientists simulating the universe?

From the summary:
The whole universe was simulated by ten billion particles, each having a mass a billion times that of our sun.
I somehow doubt that there are scientists which have such a large mass.

Re:Obligatory question

[Gyan]

I somehow doubt that there are scientists which have such a large mass.

How much can hot air weigh?

Dr. Mike Johnson claims dibs on God

[Anonymous Coward]

"I always wanted to be God." said Dr. Johnson. "When they announced this project, the first words out of my mouth were 'Dibs on God!' I even have plans to introduce a son in a few billion simulated years. This is going to be exciting."

Why bother?

[sometwo]

The answer is 42. Just google it

From the library reference desk

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a 1:1 scale map of the world I can use?

Uh yes, but it's being used right now.

And in other news...

[mikael]

... the intergalactic branch of the RIAA has filed a "Cease and Desist" order against the scientists, citing Copyright law; that anyone giving out free copies of the universe without first seeking permission from the copyright holder is a violation of intergalactic intellectual property rights.